MARC-Charset
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INTRODUCTION
MARC::Charset is a package to assist you in converting converting data encoded
using MARC-8 character sets to Unicode (UTF-8).
The MARC format (MAchine Readable Cataloging) has been used since the early
1970s to encode bibliographic data. Since catalogers have used non-Latin
character sets for a long time, MARC had to grapple with the issue of encoding
non-ASCII data in an 8-bit environment from very early on; this became known
as the "MARC-8 Environment".
In 1992 the Unicode standard provided a a uniform encoding for all major
modern written languages. The MARC21 standard now supports encoding character
data in Unicode, specifically the UCS Transformation Formats-8 (UTF-8). UTF-8
has the advantage that it allows normal ASCII (8-bit) data to exist side by
side with the full repertoire of Unicode characters (16-bit).
Unicode notwithstanding, libraries still have a wealth of data encoded using
MARC-8. Yet, some new data formats such as XML require that characters are
encoded using Unicode. In order to fascilitate conversion the Library of
Congress graciously published character mappings to fascilitate the conversion
of MARC-8 data to Unicode.
MARC::Charset is basically an implementation of the character mappings that
the Library of Congress has published. For an overview of the MARC-8
environment and to see the MARC8/Unicode translation tables please visit:
http://www.loc.gov/marc/specifications/speccharintro.html
INSTALLATION
To install this module type the following:
perl Makefile.PL
make
make test
make install
DEPENDENCIES
- Perl 5.8.0
- Test::More
- XML::SAX
- Class::Accessor
- Unicode::Normalize
You may also want to install MARC::Record to process MARC data, but you can
use MARC::Charset by itself if you like.
COPYRIGHT AND LICENCE
This software is free software and may be distributed under the same
terms as Perl itself.
Copyright (C) 2002 Ed Summers